Community, patterns, tricks for beginning and intermediate knitters.

101 – knitting basics

Knitting is so cool, but how on earth do you get started? Get some needles and some yarn and play! If you want to get started find some worsted weight yarn (the one with the “4” on it and some 4.5 mm straight needles and do a little practice.

just four things you need to know to get started

These videos from Howcast show you the four things you need to know to do most knitting. This isn’t everything but it’s enough to get you started:

You need to get some stitches on a needle by casting on (CO in a pattern):

The cable CO shown above is the easiest method to learn. It’s also really close to a knit stitch so learning one will pretty much get you the other one.

2. You need to know the knit stitch (k in a pattern):

3. You need to know the purl stitch (p in a pattern):

4. And you need to able to finish the work by getting the stitches off the needle by binding them off (BO in a pattern):

Master those four and you are on your way! Once you’ve got these you can do a lot of knitting. And it’s an easy matter to move on to other techniques like lace or cables.